information behaviour study

As a contribution to the 2014 Information Seeking in Context conference, 293 iSquares were examined for insights into information behaviour. The study, entitled "Information Behaviour Illustrated", explored the questions: What can drawings of information suggest about information behaviour? What role can images of this kind play in information behaviour research? Analysis occurred in multiple stages and focused exclusively on the drawings (not the text on the back side). First, an iSquare of relevance to information behaviour was operationalized as one that contained a whole or partial human being. From 293 iSquares, 126 qualified (43%) and were recast as “information behaviour squares,” or ibSquares. Then, thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) was performed on the ibSquares in the light of the aforementioned research questions and the major concepts in information behaviour. The most common visual themes were: the hands, the brain, a person thinking, an individual in a context, a twosome in information exchange and an information-rich social world. Examples of the themes appear in the slideshows, below. The themes embody central tenets of information behaviour that are popular in the literature today. A limitation is the difficulty of discerning specific types of information activity in the drawings. Otherwise, the ibSquares provide an accessible, fresh perspective on information behaviour research and pedagogy, and expand the visual vocabulary of information behaviour beyond models. Full text of "Information Behaviour Illustrated" by Jenna Hartel appears in the online journal Information Research.

gallery of results

the hands

Several of the drawings represented a person through hand(s). For example, in one ibSquare a hand with a paintbrush is poised to create a work of art and in another the hands carry a wide-open book of multimedia information resources. In all cases the hand(s) animate the ibSquare with vitality and suggest engagement with the material world. From the annals of information behaviour, this reflects the role of action in Kuhlthau's information search process (1988), such as taking a book off a library shelf. These ibSquares also channel Buckland’s information processing, that is, the handling of information that is tangible (1991). More recently, Hektor (2001) has used the phrase information activity instead of information behaviour, to emphasize the physical manipulation of information as done with the hand(s).

the brain

Another recurring motif was the brain. Uniformly, these entailed a roundish, lumpy cerebral cortex with symmetrical hemispheres and distinct, variegated folds. The preponderance of brains affirms information science’s affiliation with cognitive science, cognitive psychology and neuroscience. They are reminders, too, that information behaviour research treats the brain as a black box; we do not pursue anatomical and physiological explanations for information phenomena. Yet these ibSquares point to a nascent frontier in our specialty. Emergent techniques of brain imaging might someday afford a new perspective on information behaviour. Imagine, for a moment, seeing colorful, real-time images of the brain as a research subject searches for and uses information, revealing relationships and patterns not detected before.

a person thinking

Numerous ibSquares harbored a person thinking and reflect the cognitive viewpoint in information science and information behaviour. Anchored in Brookes’ (1980) fundamental equation of information science in which information produces a change in a knowledge structure, the cognitive viewpoint centers information phenomena in the mind. The same idea is captured in Buckland’s information-as-process (1991), which is “When someone is informed, what they know has changed” (p. 351). In the cognitive tradition, Belkin (1980) generated important subjective concepts such as the anomalous state of knowledge (ASK) as the driver for information seeking. An example of the cognitive approach to information behaviour research is Todd’s (1999) study of how girls’ understanding changes as they process drug information. (If Todd were to turn his research on girls into a comic book, it might resemble this batch of ibSquares.)

an individual in a context

All the drawings in this slideshow of ibSquares display an individual in a context. The person stands front and center surrounded by his or her own thoughts and ideas, print information artifacts, media, information technologies, people, nature, culture and language. The compositions are dynamic, with lines and arrows connecting graphic sub-objects to suggest a process, influence or transformation. In the information behaviour specialty, context is a disputed term with many interpretations (Dervin, 1996). Here, context comes across as objectified, an approach that identifies the entities that impact information behaviour in any situation (Talja, Keso and Pietiläinen, 1999). These ibSquares do not capture context in its most fulsome expression, which might include epistemological, social, cultural, historical and temporal elements.

a twosome in information exchange

On several cartoony ibSquares, partners face each other in conversation via speech bubbles or through messages that manifest as arrows or lines. These ibSquares depict an information activity that Hektor (2001) calls information exchange. It entails the bi-directional acts of dressing (expressing information) and unfolding (experiencing information) in an ongoing reciprocal process. Another apt term for what appears is information sharing. A different interpretation is that the twosome is experiencing an information ground (Pettigrew, 1999), that is, an environment where people come together for one reason but end up socializing and sharing information spontaneously. Information grounds bring attention to locations, such as waiting rooms, hair salons and other unexpected places where they occur. However, no spatial or geographic clues exist on the drawings, so these glimpses of information grounds are incomplete.

an information rich social world

A final visual motif within the ibSquare collection showed an information-rich social world (Strauss, 1978). People were numerous and appear as tiny faces or stick figures, resembling a colony of insects. In different ways the actors are placed in relation to information phenomena such as information technology, information resources and information institutions. Arrows and lines connect the graphic sub-objects, suggesting an iterative flow between the entities. These ibSquares construe information behaviour as embedded in community, reflecting a long-standing social approach to information behaviour that takes a group as the unit of analysis. In a current climate that favors more precise terminology, information behaviour within communities is referred to as information practice (Savolainen, 2008; McKenzie, 2003), and it is suggested in these ibSquares.

Engelhardt, Y. (2002). The language of graphics: A framework for the analysis of syntax and meaning in maps, charts and diagrams. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Hartel, J. (2014). An Arts-informed study of information using the draw-and-write technique. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 65(7), 1349-1367. [full text available at Selected Works]